Facebook has launched its news section and it will reportedly pay millions of dollars (in some cases) for headlines.
The social media platform has over the years shunned news organizations while benefiting from their advertising revenue and cutting their stories out of its newsfeeds.
Now, a section in the Facebook mobile app called “News Tab” will display headlines (and nothing else) from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Business Insider, NBC, USA Today, and Los Angeles Times, among others.
Local stories from the US’ biggest cities will also be included and headlines from smaller towns as well.
Clicking these headlines will take one directly to publisher websites or apps (if there are any installed). This is what publishers have wanted from Facebook for some time.
Facebook didn’t disclose who is getting paid and how much, but it said it would be paying a range of publishers for access to all their content. This is contrary to what CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last year about how he wasn’t sure it made sense to pay news outlets for their content.
The Los Angeles Times stated that the effort from Facebook is expected to increase its readership and digital subscribers.
Facebook says that a team of seasoned journalists in its services will choose the headlines for the “Today’s Story” section of the tab, designed to “catch you up” on the day’s news. The rest of the news section will be filled with stories based on the interests of users.
